


she needs no needle to heal a broken heart

by spoofyadverts



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Crushes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Guilt, Hornet Learns About Self Care, Love at First Sight, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, These Bugs Are Gay And There's Nothing You Can Do About It, Training, after the dream no more ending, bretta helps her, bretta learns how to kill and feels bad about it, bugs have teal/blue blood, hornet doesn't know how to deal with feelings, mato is a dad friend, this ship is cute why arent there any other fics for it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:05:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoofyadverts/pseuds/spoofyadverts
Summary: Bretta finds a new muse for her stories as she prepares to leave Dirtmouth. Hornet doesn't notice, but it won't be long until her desire to protect Hallownest no matter what leaves her vulnerable.)bapy's first fanfic oh boy)





	1. a new muse

Even with the infection in its death throes, Dirtmouth seemed even grayer than usual for Bretta. Her savior gone, her Prince nothing but a sham, what even was left for her here? What joy could she find, knowing she’d never find the love she hoped for in this place? Sometimes she wondered if she should have ever been rescued from the wastes..

She huffed dejectedly, glancing around from the bench she spent most of her days on, hoping that The One would arrive, the knight in shining armor she wrote about in her stories. She wondered where they'd come from. Would they walk through the doors of the stag station and be smitten? Would they leap down from the cliffs? Step off the elevator past the graveyard and fall in love at first sight?

In truth, The One came from below, climbing from the Crossroads, needle in hand.

Hornet hadn’t noticed the way the beetle’s carapace was tinted pink when she emerged from the underground, still somewhat in the haze that fighting one sibling and losing another created. She didn’t expect to become so  _ attached _ to the Ghost. Nevertheless, she had to persist. Even if the infection was gone, Hallownest still had many threats, and she had no excuse to halt her duty to protect it. Glancing at the town for a moment, she began repeating the events that freed this kingdom from infection to the town’s elder, trying to ignore the sting in her chest it created. She had a duty. She could not falter. The half-weaver could rest when the Kingdom was safe, and that time was not here yet. Would it ever be here? That didn’t matter to her.  All that mattered to her was protecting Hallownest while it still lived, clinging as if sewn to life by her thread. Nothing else. Nothing.

The Knight was no more. She saw the shattered remains of their shell in the ruins of the Temple.

The Pale King- referring to him as her father would leave a foul taste in her mouth- was no more. He had been gone for a long, long time.

The Dreamers were no more. They had been freed, to finally truly rest.

The Hollow Knight was free now, but too fragile from an eternity of decay and disease to do anything at the moment beyond healing.

She was the only one left to serve as life support for this dying kingdom. If it were to heal from the sickly amber curse left on it for so long, it needed a protector. That was her duty, and she had to fulfill it. As she returned to her duties below, ignoring the ache and exhaustion that battle with her sibling had thrust upon her, she glanced at the girl on the bench for a second.

To the watcher, it seemed like that second lasted an eternity. She’d found a new muse for her stories.

As the stranger disappeared into the depths once more, her scarlet cloak being tousled by Dirtmouth’s soft wind,  Bretta felt a deep longing to see her again.


	2. i was just a fool to keep on chasing after nothing great

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bretta makes her first kill, and Feels Very Bad About It.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uhH i'm writing bug blood/haemolymph as being blue/teal because It Is.

She had to leave, she decided.

This town had nothing for her. It had nothing she needed. It had nothing she wanted. All she wanted was to see the one in red once more.

….But where to go? She didn’t know, all she knew was that she could stay in Dirtmouth no longer. It was killing her as much as the threats outside would, although far more slowly.

The nail was easy enough to acquire. She had nothing worth spending her Geo on, so she’d accumulated enough to find one in her grasp. Using it, however, would be an entire other problem. She’d never been a fighter, always a helpless damsel relying on the prince of her fantasies. And the concept of killing another living thing was alien to her. Could she really do that? End another life? The statue of the Gray Prince she used to practice her swings couldn’t move. It couldn’t feel pain. It couldn’t cry out.

It couldn’t die at her hands.

But if killing meant she’d encounter the stranger once more…

Goodness, what was she thinking? She’d never harmed another living thing, besides perhaps hurting her White Savior’s feelings when she saw them for what they really were. She had none of the skill, the experience, the training...

That was it! Training! She could become stronger, then she’d be able to travel by herself. And then she could find her again! The dismal train of thought clouding her mind seemed to derail almost instantly. She didn’t have to be weak. She could change. Not that that would be an easy task. For one thing, she didn’t know how to become stronger. Or where to do so.

According to Elderbug, a powerful wielder of the nail could be found in the cliffs just outside of town, willing to teach. She could make it that far, couldn’t she?

…. In truth, she could not. How could she ever think so?

Wandering through the seemingly desolate land, occasionally glancing around anxiously, Bretta focused on nothing but her determination to see the bug in red another time, the whispering gale forcing her forward and pushing her doubts aside like stray leaves. She could do this! For her! Thinking of the stranger was proving a wonderful way to keep her eyes from the empty husks she passed. She wondered if they had families. Perhaps she should try to find out- they’re probably being missed. No. She can’t think of death right now, or she’ll be distracted and upset, and then how will she find the one in red? That was her main goal, after all.

In her mind, she repeats the way she was told to go over and over, only stopping when her memory of the elder’s voice was replaced by a sharp squawk. She jolts and looks up to see a small fly approaching, feral malice in its eyes. Even with the infection gone, there were still hostile creatures residing in Hallownest’s every corner. Nothing would change that.

She draws her nail, prepared to defend herself for once.

The creature’s wings beat as it draws closer.

She raises her nail. It screeches. She slashes.

In a split second, it falls to the ground, teal fluid spilling from the body. Bretta watches it struggle, watches it continue to fight in vain to rise again, watches its movements slow as the cerulean pool swells. When it finally goes limp, she can’t keep herself from trembling anymore.

She killed something.

_She killed something._

The thing on the ground once lived, and now it did not, and that was her fault. It looked too small to be grown- what if it had a mother waiting for her stray child to come back to the nest? What had she done? Why did she decide doing this was a good idea, always such a fool doing anything for the faintest hope of love- Still trying to comprehend the fact she’d ended another being’s life, she stares at her shaking palms and ignores the squawk of another fly, far, far larger, drawing closer.

When she notices it, she’s startled into dropping her nail, and it clatters loudly in an empty, wide cavern. Nobody was here. There was Bretta, and there were the flies, and there were the rocks. Nothing else. No saviour to protect her yet again.

She failed. She’d be torn to shreds here, alone and afraid and guilty over such a small beast. She'd never finish the latest chapter of her stories, about a heroine in a red cloak sweeping a fair maiden off her feet with no need to trip her with the thread she carried. The stranger would never know her name.

The larger fly screeches and lunges for her, mandibles preparing to bisect. Bretta readies herself for the sensation of her shell being scraped and shredded to small scraps of flesh.

That sensation never comes.

As she squeezes her eyes shut and prepares for the seemingly inevitable, there’s a cry in a familiar voice, and a needle finds itself lodged through the fly's thorax.


	3. something about you escapes me, i've lost my charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bretta's stories start coming true, and Hornet tries her best to Bottle Up Her Feelings.  
> I don't know how to add warnings to specific chapters so uhhh there's bug blood

Hornet’s meditation had been fitful.

The Nailmaster was a worthy opponent to sharpen her skills against, and he usually insisted that she joined him afterwards. Yet she seemed to be unable to focus this time, resisting the urge to fidget with her cloak. A mind too full to be emptied, it seemed.

She could deal with that later.

The protector of Hallownest senses a soft clatter, a quiet, almost inaudible gasp. Both her Weaver blood and upbringing had heightened her senses- Deepest was shrouded by shadow, and survival there demanded that she could sense anything coming even without seeing them herself, or being able to immediately tell they were threats. The cry she heard was no falsehood, no trap. She could tell it was genuine. Someone nearby was in danger, and it was her duty to help.

Without a word, she opens her eyes and rises, nodding to Mato as she slips into the waste of rock and wind beyond. Not far from where she stands, there’s a bug- she seems somewhat familiar- and a vengefly, ready to attack. An adult-perhaps the leader of a colony?- certainly a threat as opposed to its young, nothing more than pests to a warrior with any sort of expertise. But to an unarmed one, they could be deadly. She needed to step in.

Not even considering the risk of entering another fight so soon, she launches her needle at the fly.

Bretta opens her eyes. To her surprise, she isn’t being torn apart by the creature widening its jaws mere moments ago. It’s twisting backwards and hissing, a sharp point emerging from its side. The needle retracts, and it screeches in pain before darting towards….a figure in red.

Could it be...?

Her Red Heroine! She was  _here!_ In front of her! Protecting her! She was saved!

The maiden picks up her nail and rolls it between her palms, wondering if she can do anything beyond observing this fierce clash between crimson and cobalt, between death and claw and light and love.

Hornet’s concentrating on nothing but leading the beast away from the girl before she takes it down. It’s an easily defeated foe, even with her being in a somewhat weakened state, but she’d rather have no collateral damage. The beetle seems so weak, so vulnerable. Innocence like that is rare in a dead kingdom like this. It’s precious. It’s beautiful. Or is all of the girl like that? No, that weakness could only leave her hurt. It couldn’t stay. There’s no time to dwell on it right now. She’d rather not tarnish that innocence by getting distracted and injured in front of her. That would be simply foolish. For now, focus on nothing but the beast and her needle and the wind that surrounds them. Nothing else. Nothing. She cannot think of the past. She cannot think of what’s to come. Only of this moment. The little ghost is no more. They are within the past. She cannot think of the past.

The lord of the flies is far enough to strike now, anyway. Cerulean trickles from its punctured side, and she doubts it would be able to persist after another blow. One more hit. One more.

It attempts a staggering lunge, scattering cerulean in its path. All Hornet has to do is hold her needle in front of her and watch her blade plunge between its eyes.

It crashes to the ground with a cacophonous thud, light leaving the fly's eyes as its legs begin to curl underneath its round body. Hornet stands above the body, panting, and attempting to calm herself. It’s strange, she muses. She was usually fine and prepared to continue almost instantly, but things change when one has done nothing but patrol the kingdom for days on end. Sleep is for the weak and the unoccupied, she decides. She can continue for now, certainly. Probably.

Bretta can do nothing but watch in awe. She was here. _Here!_ For a few moments, there are no words, just the wind, and her heroine’s heavy breathing, and the buzzing of fleeing flies, their master no more. Hornet glances at the other and sighs internally. She needs to say _something._ Her ability lay in mastery of her needle and nimble movement- not talking to others. Especially not those as lovely as-

No. No time for that ( _not right now, anyway_ ). She approaches the still mildly trembling beetle, trying her best to avoid seeming threatening despite the splatters of gore coating her shell (In truth, Bretta would have responded no differently had she been painted blue from horn to tarsu.) Speak, daughter of Hallownest, speak. Do not think of the past. Focus on now. Focus on her.

Hornet cocks her head, her eyes finally meeting with Bretta's. 

“You aren’t hurt, are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ hornet: Get Some Rest, Tall Child.


End file.
